NO: More power to history, which doesn't favor Denver, writes Mike Klis

Never mind the power rankings, which generally list the Broncos as the second- to the fifth-best team in the NFL.

This isn't college football. Power rankings are about as relevant to determining the Super Bowl winner as a college degree is to a graduate trying to enter the workforce.

The Broncos are the team to beat. They are prohibitive favorites to win Super Bowl XLVIII on Feb. 2 at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J., and have been since well before the season. According to the Las Vegas Hotel & Casino sports book, the Broncos are 5-2 favorites to win it all. Seattle and San Francisco are next at 9-2.

Therein lies the rub.

The best teams don't win the Super Bowl anymore.

Six of the past eight NFL championship teams didn't have a first-round playoff bye. Since New England stopped winning the Super Bowl after the 2004 season, the Super Bowl winner has been, on average, a No. 4 playoff seed. The average regular-season record for the league champion has been 11-5.

"That tells me there isn't much difference between the No. 1 seed and the No. 5 or 6 seed," said Tony Dungy, who coached quarterback Peyton Manning and the 2006 Indianapolis Colts to the Super Bowl title. "I know when we won it, it was probably the fourth- or fifth-best team we had in the seven years I was there.

"Things have to go your way."

A strong case can be made that Manning, now in his second season with the Broncos, has been the league's best quarterback for the past 12 years. And yet, he has only one Super Bowl title.

A deeper look at Manning's 9-11 playoff record, though, reveals many of those losses haven't been on him. Look first at the season his Colts won the Super Bowl.

In 2006, the Colts won it all even though Manning had four of his worst playoff performances. Through his first two playoff victories that season, he had only one touchdown pass against five interceptions. In those four playoff wins, his passer ratings were 71.9, 39.6, 79.1 and 81.8.

Compare that with his four subsequent one-and-done postseasons from 2007-12, when he had passer ratings of 97.0, 90.4, 108.7 and 88.7.

Manning gets his team to the playoffs. But to win the Super Bowl, a team must prevail in a playoff game or two when the quarterback is not at his best. Can the Broncos prevail if Manning has an off day?

"The ability to run the ball in cold weather, I have a question on that," said Charley Casserly, who helped build three Super Bowl champs for the Washington Redskins in the 1980s and is now an NFL Network analyst. "That's one thing that could stop them. No. 2, one of the great advantages of the Denver offense is it's hard to prepare for in one week. The team (in the Super Bowl) that has two weeks to prepare, one of things they can do is what New Orleans did (in 2009) is have two game plans — first-half game plan, second-half game plan. The ability to make adjustments at halftime — which Peyton is great at — is negated when you have two weeks to prepare."

For clarity, Dungy and Casserly believe the Broncos have a good chance to win it all, especially if they play the AFC playoff portion in Denver. But for this story, they were asked to point out concerns.

Both mentioned the impact that cold weather can have on the Broncos' pass-and-catch game. Running back Knowshon Moreno has been able to run well against a nickel defense, but what happens if the weather allows a defense to stack the box? It's a must that rookies Montee Ball and C.J. Anderson come on as rushers during the second half of the season.

Dungy credits the veteran moxie in the Denver locker room, "but there's some concern about the injuries to the offensive line," he said. "It only takes one matchup with an edge rusher like Robert Mathis in the Indy game."

No matter how good a team, it needs some luck to win it all too.

For the Ravens last season, it was the 70-yard Flacco Fling. So far for the 2013 Broncos, all-pro offensive tackle Ryan Clady is done for season, Von Miller was suspended, coach John Fox had midseason heart surgery and Champ Bailey can't shake a foot injury.

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